


Ask Not for Whom the Blog Scrolls

by histoiredamour



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Episode: s10e05 Fan Fiction, Fanfiction, Fluff and Angst, Hypothetical Destiel and Sastiel, M/M, Meta, POV Sam Winchester, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/histoiredamour/pseuds/histoiredamour
Summary: It scrolls for thee, Sam Winchester.Post-Fan Fiction, Sam's curiosity about Sastiel gets the better of him. While Sam peruses Tumblr, learns new vocabulary words, and becomes embroiled in fandom wank, he misses the IRL ship unfolding in front of his eyes. Where is the line between reality and fiction, what is 'endgame,' and what will Dean think about it all? Sam hopes he never finds out.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Ask Not for Whom the Blog Scrolls

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt in Discord (S/O to Tamesis!). I've taken some liberties and I do hope that they pay off. Meta and one-shots are a challenge for me, but I enjoyed writing this and want to thank all the wonderful discord folks for the inspiration. <3 
> 
> Enjoy!

_Samstiel? Is that even a thing? Sastiel, maybe?_ Sam lounged against the faded leather of the Impala, staring off into the middle distance with his brows furrowed and his chin resting on his hand. _What would that even be like?_

Immediate, unbidden images of vague aspect but definitely bright, naked, and screaming appeared in his mind, and he shook them away just as fast, with a shudder.

“You okay, man?” Dean asked, looking over with concern. “Do I need to pull over or-”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Sam assured him, straightening up and smoothing his hair, smiling with what he hoped was a reassuring expression. Dean didn’t seem to buy it. This was obviously something he wasn’t interested in hearing.

“Okay, but I’ve told you, you hurl in my baby and you’re walking all the way back to Kansas.”

Sam laughed and took out his phone. A silent plea for Dean to let it go. Sam’s eyes slid easily back and forth between his phone and his brother’s face, lit every few seconds by the streetlights they passed but, otherwise, inscrutable. He hunched his broad shoulders in the hopes of hiding his search from Dean, as he slowly typed in “Samstiel.” 

Fewer than 50,000 results. Sam was a bit disheartened, considering that his most recent search - Destiel, naturally - had returned over a million results. Was it possible he just wasn’t as popular? His tongue flitted between his teeth in concentration as he typed in - _to check_ , he assured himself - _just to check -_ “Sam/Dean.” Sam frowned. Still fewer than Destiel, though not when combined with the portmanteau “Wincest.” Sam’s lips, still tight with concentration, tipped upward. He glanced again at his brother - it seemed like an invasion, maybe, to look without him. Looking at his brother’s freckled profile highlighted every few seconds by the passing streetlamps, Sam felt something tear in his chest. Dean wouldn’t want anything to do with that. He watched the wooden Samulet swing to the rhythm of the road for a minute before navigating back to Sastiel.

Passing a tall and well-lit sign, Sam found that they were still a way’s out of Lebanon, so he clicked the first link that appeared - something called a “Shipping Wiki.”

Forty-five minutes into reading some surprisingly deep pieces of meta, it seemed to Sam as if Sastiel made the most sense of all the ships he had seen. Certainly more than Destiel, he thought, shooting a glare over at his brother, who was still drumming idly on the steering wheel and humming along to “Holy Diver.” Sam snorted. And wincest, well, it wasn’t even worth talking about, Sam told himself, determinedly shutting the door on the thought. He sighed heavily. Dean would never. 

The shipping wiki linked to a multitude of other places - some of which he was familiar with, from when they first found out about the _Supernatural_ series. Some “Tumblr” sites were blocked to guests though. Sam’s thumb hovered over the “Sign up” button as he chewed his lip. How badly did he want to read “The Incontrovertible Proof of Sastiel Endgame,” really?

“Wanna grab some dinner?” Dean asked, startling Sam out of his reverie. 

“Um, yeah, sure,” Sam agreed, tucking his phone back into his pocket for the time being. He could do more research at the bunker. 

~*~

They arrived back home in the dead of night. Dean tossed half of his duffel next to the washing machine and Sam offered to stay up to wash everything. 

“Are you sure, man? You look like you need some shut-eye.” Dean rested a hand on his shoulder and tilted his head to look into Sam’s eyes. There was that twisting sensation again, pulling behind his navel.

“Yeah, think I’m gonna read for a bit. I’ll hit the hay afterward, I promise.” 

Patting his shoulder firmly, Dean nodded in satisfaction and replied “Night, Sammy,” before taking off down the hallway to his room. Sam leaned heavily against the dryer and took out his phone.

Typing in one of his throwaway email addresses, Sam begrudgingly signed up for a Tumblr account as “anonymous12479.” He finally had access to what appeared to be several essays on top of each other, detailing the “subtext” behind Sastiel from the past several novels. There was that word again. Subtext.

Sam read through the essays quickly, feeling a creeping sense of unease as he perused the blogs. His hair stood on end and goosebumps appeared on his arms as he read “As soon as they’re alone, Sam and Cas are continually just reaching inside each other…” Is that what Cas had thought too? Oh God, had he been leading him on, all this time? He shook his head as if scattering flies. The thought was absurd.

When the washer finished with a buzz, Sam jumped a foot in the air and went to fetch Dean’s favorite whiskey. 

Piling the damp clothes into the dryer, Sam poured himself a full hand of whiskey and downed the first few sips overeagerly. His throat and eyes burned as he turned his attention back to the page, still open on his phone. He needed to keep track of some of these meta pieces, just to remind himself to not let Cas… ugh… _inside him_ when they were alone anymore. Clicking the heart-shaped “like” button seemed a bit too on-the-nose, so Sam reblogged it to his page instead. It was kind of like saving a file, right?

Sam scrolled through other pieces of Sastiel meta, but soon became sidetracked with the memes and pieces of fanart that came across the dashboard. Some were captioned with quotes from the novels themselves and others, disturbingly, with Celine Dion lyrics. Again, Sam checked over both shoulders. How did they know?

Inevitably, on his journey through various Tumblr pages tagged #supernatural, he came across some users that seemed to ship Destiel instead. Again, the quotes from the novels. Again, the fanart. This time, however, they were almost all captioned with lyrics from that one Aerosmith song, “Angel.” Sam scoffed, even as his stomach turned. Dean would be so offended. He noticed himself scrolling faster past anything that included Dean. Surprisingly, the X-Rated stuff piqued his interest, but the softer moments - which users seemed more inclined to draw - made bile rise in the back of his throat and his hands shake.

Around the time the dryer buzzed, Sam had figured out how to filter tags - though, for some reason, Destiel still showed up on his dashboard. He had “reblogged” a number of other posts to read later, including a PDF of “Sam-Centric Fic Recs” that, admittedly, made him feel a bit narcissistic. Sam dutifully folded their mix of denim and flannel into the hamper and left it on the dryer for the morning. 

As he lay in bed that night, rubbing his eyes that still itched from the glare of his phone’s blue light, he began to consider that he had a problem.

~*~

Most days, Sam would wake up a few minutes before his alarm and focus on what he wanted to accomplish. The first few minutes of peace had been important to him before, but they went out the window that morning as he immediately reached for his phone. Looking at the screen, he realized he had half a dozen notifications just from Tumblr, most of which were “followers.”

People… followed him? They saw what he posted? Sam’s brow furrowed as he went through the results of the previous night’s binge. He opened up “Sam-Centric Fic Recs” and saw the pairing “Sastiel” at the top. Rolling onto his side, he clicked the first link without regard to the summary or rating and found himself clicking back less than a minute later. _That_ was too much. Paying closer attention to the ratings, he opened one that was - mercifully - rated “PG.” 

Sam read through all 9,287 words. It was a bit too purple-prosey for his taste - he was definitely more of a Hemingway, himself - but he could see the appeal. It seemed wholesome and comforting. In fact, it wouldn’t have been the _worst_ thing to hear Cas say some of the same things from the story. He supposed everyone had their interpretation of the source material, after all. If these were meant to be Gospels, wasn’t this on some level similar to _The Divine Comedy?_ Sam chuckled darkly. He reposted the link to his followers, with the question “What do you all think of this?” Is this what readers were getting from their life story?

Sighing, and accepting that he had effectively obliterated his chances at continuing his run streak, Sam finally pulled himself out of bed at 9:30 and padded his bare feet towards the kitchen, following the smell of bacon and eggs.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean called over his shoulder, mixing together potatoes o’brien and sipping a coffee - _Irish_ coffee, Sam amended, seeing the whiskey had been retrieved from the laundry room since last night. “What’d you throw a party without me or something?”

Sam raked a hand through his hair and yawned. “No,” he began, but couldn’t think of how to end the sentence. Dean merely quirked an eyebrow at him and loaded up his plate with eggs and hash. “Thanks,” he mumbled, pulling the plate and Dean’s proffered tabasco sauce closer. 

“So what were you doing last night?” 

Sam paused with a bite of egg halfway to his mouth. “Uh, just finishing the laundry, why?”

“Come off it, Sam, you’ve been acting weird since we left the school. What is it?” 

“Nothing, dude. Just a bit creeped out that our lives are up for public consumption, I guess.”

Dean sat down and kicked his feet up onto a chair, taking another sip from his mug. “Yeah, well, what else is new? If it’s not some teeny-bopper, it’d be Chuck or… or those two imposters from the alternate universe, right? It’s all fucked anyway, we gotta just try to keep on living.” He leveled Sam with a stare, licking a bit of whiskey from his lip. 

Sam chewed thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. What’re you doing today?”

“Gonna tune up Baby, I think. I noticed something rattling around when we pulled in. Might take one of the older cars out to get parts. Want to come for a ride?”

Sam considered it, but declined. “I want to get some reading done,” he hedged. It wasn’t entirely false.

“Alright, geekboy,” Dean said, kicking his foot under the table. Dean’s toes were like icicles against his own. Sam glared, and the two finished their breakfast in companionable silence. 

Right after Sam had finished the dishes and Dean had retired to the garage, Sam was again hiding out in his bedroom, back pressed against the stiff headboard as he pulled up Tumblr - this time on his laptop. The app had been glitching and, while it said Sam had a dozen replies, he couldn’t read any of them.

Reading through some of the responses to his question, Sam accepted that the overwhelming sentiment from his followers was that Sastiel was hard to find, but “so soft and pure” when it was done right. Two other comments stood out, though. One said “If you like this, check out the author’s epic wincest fic! 150k+ words of mutual pining and the hottest smut you’ll ever read!” Sam felt his cheeks grow hot as he looked around nervously. Mutual pining…? A quick Google search told him more about the trope and, from a literary perspective, it seemed compelling… In fact, Sam felt as if he understood pining better than most of the authors. But again, he shook his head; Dean wouldn’t…

Another comment was significantly more aggressive. “Castiel would never settle for a freak like Sam. He belongs with the hero of the story, and everyone who actually reads the books knows that’s Dean.” Sam shrugged. You can’t please them all, and they did have a point. What kind of interest would an angel have in Sam, anyway? Of course Dean was the hero. He was so brave, and smart, and strong. Just because he didn’t want to read about his brother with Castiel, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel - 

A new notification popped up in the bottom right of the page. It seemed someone had replied to destielfucks216 with a long comment that began “Thanks for your horrible take, destielSUCKS216…” Sam couldn’t read the rest of the message, but he cringed visibly. He hadn’t meant to start some kind of Internet war about who got to sleep with the angel in the fanfiction of the novelization of their lives… He wanted to look away, but it was impossible, like a slow train wreck unfolding before his eyes. 

Watching the two users argue back and forth in real time was exhausting. Sam chimed in with some evidence in favor of Sastiel, but ultimately had to abandon the mission as both users dug into deeper and more obscure knowledge of the series than even he knew - something about the number of times Chuck used the phrase “soulful glance” or “profound bond.” Overwhelmed, Sam retreated to the collection of fanfiction he had been looking at that morning. 

He made it through several PG “one-shots” of Sastiel before reaching the end of that category. They were okay; he could see it - though the authors were obviously taking extensive artistic liberties with both his and Castiel’s characters. After trying to scroll to the bottom, he jumped a bit when the next category appeared in bold, 20-point font: “Wincest: Sam/Dean.” 

Sam wouldn’t click it. He wouldn’t. But there were plenty of summaries and ratings attached to each story that gave him a good idea of what he was missing. Plenty of stories rated M and E, for one. Much, much more than for Sastiel. There were stories of all lengths and genres, including odd acronyms like AU and A/B/O that he had to Google with one eye closed, just in case. The more Sam read, the more he felt the tension in his muscles release, and his toes loosen where they had curled into the bedsheet. Surely it was okay to just look at the summaries? And it wasn’t so bad. Unlike Sastiel or even Destiel, the images that came into his mind when he imagined his brother didn’t cause him discomfort or disgust. He felt his curiosity grow. Maybe if others were seeing it, too, Sam wasn’t so much of a freak for wondering what his brother’s lips would feel like on his own...

It wasn’t as if Sam had never thought about it. He had, of course, trawled many forums several years back, when they had learned about “Sam-slash-Dean-together,” but he had never actually read a story. He figured he didn’t need to, and it would be some weird invasion of privacy. What if he found himself getting… into it? It hardly seemed fair to Dean to imagine him… that way, when he had seemed so unsettled by it back then. Sam had tried to shut it out, knowing that that kind of relationship could really only exist in fanfiction and in the deepest recesses of his own mind.

By now, Sam knew what it meant that his stomach fell every time Dean flirted with a pretty waitress, or when he scrolled quickly past a piece of fanart that featured a Dean obviously besotted with, well, anyone. He knew that the curling warmth in his stomach when Dean placed a hand on his shoulder or held his gaze was far, far from normal - but that didn’t mean he needed to involve Dean. Or that he needed to tempt fate by opening one of the fics in front of him. Determinedly, he scrolled to the top of the page and shut his laptop. His hands twitched with anticipation and he decided he needed the run to clear his head after all. 

~*~

Sam reentered his room short of breath, having pushed his limits more than usual in an attempt to rid his mind of what he had read - and **not** read. Wiping his face with a towel as he entered his room, he quickly froze in place when he saw Dean, seated on his bed, concentrating deeply on Sam’s laptop. 

“Wh-what are you doing, Dean?” Sam asked, the barest shred of hope left in his voice. 

Dean didn’t respond, but merely turned the laptop around to face Sam and dragged his eyes up to meet his brother’s gaze. It was the PDF. Purple links and all. 

“Um, I can explain - “ Sam began, and he launched into a wildly detailed and only infinitesimally truthful defense about research, foreshadowing, and a harebrained theory about Chuck actually being God. He hadn’t been keeping track of what he was saying, and he was more or less relieved when Dean held up a hand to stop him. He cut off abruptly.

“Is this what’s got you so twisted around?” Dean asked, in a low and thrilling voice that implied _It better not be._

“Um,” Sam said, helpfully. “Kind of?” Sam hung his head to look at his shoes, which had somehow become much more interesting than his brother’s wide, bright eyes.

“So, what, you want to run off with Cas now, is that it?” 

Sam’s neck snapped up as his jaw dropped. He couldn’t help from laughing. “What?”

“This -” Dean stood up, gesturing to both the laptop and the space in between them. “This is what you want, huh? All of these… stories? That’s why you were asking about what they would call you two last night?” 

Sam was speechless. He wrung his hands but couldn’t manage to get any words out of his mouth. He wanted to defend himself but, wasn’t the truth so much worse? 

“Dammit, Sam!” Dean raised his voice and kicked halfheartedly at the chair in the corner of the room. He had retreated as far from Sam as possible, crossing his arms and glaring. After a solid minute, he sat down heavily and put his forehead in his palm, rubbing mechanically. There was a spot of grease from the Impala on his lip. “Is that really what you got from all this?”

Sam seemed to find his voice as he approached Dean, at first kneeling and then sitting with his legs crossed on the bed, shutting the offending laptop and moving it away. “No,” Sam murmured. “It’s not like that.”

“What is it like, Sammy?” Dean brought his head up to face Sam again. His eyes were glassy and red around the edges. The freckles around his nose stood out in the light.He seemed to struggle to speak, voice cracking as he held Sam’s gaze. ”Man, I thought we were on the same page here. After Amelia, and that church.” His voice rumbled low in his chest. He stopped talking as he abruptly sniffed and looked away.

“We are,” Sam offered. It was all he could say. He tried to catch Dean’s eye again, trying to understand what he meant. Amelia, and the church? What did that have to do with anything? He recalled Dean holding his hand, tying a knot over his palm and whispering _“You and me, come whatever.”_

“You know, I haven’t wanted to talk about this because… Because I didn’t think it mattered, what a bunch of people on the internet wrote. What Chuck wrote. Or anything like that.” Dean was still staring at a spot on the wall, now wringing his own hands in his lap. “I _chose_ you, man,” he said, finally turning back to Sam. “And if you don’t want it to be like that, well, it’s fine, but… I just thought…”

Sam blinked, looking into his brother’s eyes - greener, softer, more expressive than anything he had seen on Tumblr. He was right, wasn’t he? That it didn’t matter. “You’re right,” Sam said. His mind was working a mile a minute. _Like that? What did that mean?_ “I chose you too,” he ground out from the back of his throat. As he felt the words on his tongue, he realized just how heavy they were. Binding. “I don’t want that.” 

Dean blinked rapidly and shook his head. “Then what the hell?” 

Sam stood up, leaning over while trying to make himself as small as possible. “Honestly, man, it was just curiosity and… a bit addictive,” he laughed. “I wondered what they thought but… I never wanted _that_ ,” Sam repeated, reaching out to touch Dean’s shoulder lightly. Sam was wide open and feared at any second Dean would reach into his chest and rip out his heart. 

Softly, Dean looked up at him. “What do you want, then?” 

Sam shifted from one foot to the other, looking down and away from his brother’s gaze. “I told you, man. And I know you don’t feel like me. You wouldn’t… Like how it is in the fan fiction… But it’s always just been us, right? So I guess, that’s all I want.” Sam’s tearful gaze finally met Dean’s, and his heart felt as though it would give out at the pace it was going. He couldn’t decipher what he saw in Dean’s eyes, and he found himself knocked off-balance as Dean suddenly rose to his feet, grasping Sam’s wrist tightly. Panicking, Sam felt like he had to give Dean an out. “But I know you wouldn’t do… that” he finished weakly.

“It’s just us,” Dean questioned, his lips barely moving as he looked at his brother. Sam nodded. Dean gave Sam a small, private smile before responding. “Then there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he felt Dean’s palm against his face, fingers skittering over the stubble from the past week. He closed his eyes, leaning into the warm touch. He tried to open his mouth to say “Me too,” but his lips only silently grazed Dean’s palm. His own hands were shaking at his sides, useless with nerves and overwhelm. 

Slowly, Dean eased Sam’s face down to his, pressing their foreheads together as he closed his eyes. Hardly daring to breathe, Sam rolled his nose against Dean’s, their eyelashes brushing the same as they used to when they were kids - _butterfly kisses._ He nudged Dean’s cheek and gripped his shoulder as he brought his lips softly down to his brother’s. Dean held Sam’s lip between his own for a moment, melding them together in love and understanding, before pressing the second and third chaste kisses to Sam’s eyes and forehead, and pulling back for them to look at one another.

Sam breathed heavily, ragged inhales and exhales as Dean put a hand over his heart to steady him. 

Dean gave him a brilliant smile and cocked his eyebrow. “Now I know you won’t read anything past PG, so let me show you how the rest of this works - “

Sam laughed and shouldered him onto the bed. “Shut up, jerk.”

Dean’s eyes flashed a playful challenge up at him. “Make me, bitch.”


End file.
